Tóc Mai Sợi Vắn Sợi Dài Lấy Nhau Chẳng Đặng Thương Hoài Ngàn Năm

Jinxed

Things tends to happen when we go away. That’s why I try to be as organised as I can. It’s my way of minimising bad things. Can’t control the weather or the politics but at least I can control the controllable factors. We’ve always travelled with kids ever since they were little. My oldest was 18 months when we took her on a plane.Our second kid was a year old when we took him. Overseas trips started when they were 4-6 years old.

Can never be too prepared travelling with kids. I always have a hand luggage full of creams, tablets, inhalers and whatever else.

1/ Vanuatu

We ended up staying at this resort Hideaway Island in a beautiful ocean view bungalow right on the edge of the island. I think I paid $80 for it per night.

The cyclone came through and well wiped out the resort’s kitchen. That evening all staff and guests had to eat at the owner’s house. I remembered not much food . The food was rationed . I’m sure some of the staff went with little or without. I couldn’t sleep as if it’s gotten any worse we would have all been wiped out.

I was 5 months pregnant with two young ones and there’s nowhere to hide since the island was tiny and flat. At one stage I actually discussed it with hubby whether we could all climb up to the roof of the bungalow.

Not to mention I was mucking around and went back on my chair and fell. May be that’s why my youngest came 5 weeks early.
The couple in the next bungalow was in a hammock and they nearly went with the hammock over the cliff. We saw a tree next to us going over so went over to warn them. Just in time too as theirs soon went.

2/ Singapore and Vietnam

Bird flu/SARS

That was when all we ate was beef and pork and seafood because of the bird flu.

We ended up leaving our youngest at home with my parents. They were adamant that we are not taking their grandchild to somewhere dangerous. She was only 9 months old. They wanted us to leave the two older ones as well.

Our oldest ended up with swollen eyes and half of her face. I packed everything except for antihistamine eye drops 😩 luckily she recovered after a few days 😩

Not only that when we were transferring from Singapore to Viet Nam the check in counter won’t let us fly because the consulate people stuffed up our visa. They typed it and then used white out and didn’t initial on the corrections. So we had to wait for their boss to come and give the okie.

On way out we had trouble too as I’d locked exit cards in our luggages. Hence my reluctance entering and exiting countries with visas.

3/ Hong Kong and South Korea

On the weekend before we were supposed to fly out the typhoon was predicted to come through. Our family friend was like fingers crossed you guys can still land. So of course we got caught yet again. A day of doing nothing as everything was closed. We got to see sandbags and typhoon preparations though and massive waves down the promenade.

Supposed to have a night in Macau and well luckily for us the typhoon was scaled down on the day we were leaving Hong Kong. Needless to say the ferry over to Macau was so choppy I was all green in the face. I actually told hubby no way am I getting back in that ferry. He’d better book flights for us.

Not only that they had that North Korea and South Korea miff. I actually paid for travel insurance early but when I read the fine prints it was like nope they don’t cover wars 😩

We did get to see lots of soldiers though South Korean and American ones.

4/ Japan and Taiwan

Booked my trip early and just went to pay for it all in full when a week later the tsunami came.

I was like what the? So had to cancel our Tokyo leg and visited Taipei instead. On way home our plane from Taipei was cancelled thus had to change our flight to a day early and booked a one night in Tokyo to catch our flight back. $800AUD for room as it was last minute booking 😩

One good thing with the tsunami I got rooms for $160 for a 5 star hotel and with all the stuff ups hubby upgraded us to business for $295 a head for the flight back. He was like don’t get used to it. It’s only to see how the other half lived . Business on Jetstar a discounted airlines 😂

This is why I don’t fly discounted long haul . Once bitten twice shy and why I don’t listen to hubby . It was his idea we flew stopping over in Australia and not overseas. Jetstar was the only one that did that flight route.

5/ USA

Hubby was mad at me because I was naughty.

Then from California to New York we didn’t get on to the plane til the last minute . They must have oversold seats. We booked through the travel agents so don’t know what happened when I went to check in they didn’t have seats on our boarding passes.

We got lost once and we missed the Statue of Liberty twice so never saw it.

6/ Hawaii

Tore my leg muscle doing the hula 😂 other than that we had a great trip.